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Structured Finance Industry Group Challenges Use Of Eminent Domain To Seize Mortgage Loans

September 2, 2013 Ship Finance is a major ship owning company listed on the New York Stock Exchange ( NYSE : SFL ). Including newbuildings, the Company has a fleet of 70 vessels, including 24 crude oil tankers (VLCC and Suezmax), two chemical tankers, 12 drybulk carriers, 19 container vessels (including eight newbuildings), two car carriers, six offshore supply vessels, two jack-up drilling rigs (including one newbuilding), two ultra-deepwater semi-submersible drilling rigs and one ultra-deepwater drillship. The fleet is one of the largest in the world and most of the vessels are employed on long-term charters. More information can be found on the Company's website: www.shipfinance.org Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain forward looking statements. These statements are based upon various assumptions, many of which are http://www.firstfinancialuk.com based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including Ship Finance management's examination of historical operating trends. Although Ship Finance believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond its control, Ship Finance cannot give assurance that it will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or intentions. Important factors that, in the Company's view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in this presentation include the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions including fluctuations in charter hire rates and vessel values, changes in demand in the tanker market as a result of changes in OPEC's petroleum production levels and worldwide oil consumption and storage, changes in the Company's operating expenses including bunker prices, dry-docking and insurance costs, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, and other important factors described from time to time in the reports filed by the Company with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. SFL - 2012 Annual Report on Form 20-F: http://hugin.info/134876/R/1726560/576160.pdf SFL - Notice of Annual General Meeting 2013: http://hugin.info/134876/R/1726560/576158.pdf This announcement is distributed by Thomson Reuters on behalf of Thomson Reuters clients.

"While SFIG recognizes the challenges currently confronting municipalities and borrowers, the use of eminent domain to seize mortgage loans is an illegitimate tactic that undermines the integrity of the entire home mortgage system," said Richard Johns, Executive Director of SFIG. "Allowing this type of practice is a short-sighted and unconstitutional idea. Not only would it do irreparable damage to the private mortgage market, undermining Congressional efforts to encourage private capital in the market, but it would also actually injure the local residents these efforts are supposed to be helping." The SFIG brief argues that efforts by Richmond and MRP to seize loans held in PLS Trusts is unconstitutional and could do permanent damage to the U.S. home mortgage system. The brief points to significant risk on three levels: -- The market for securities issued by PLS Trusts will be fundamentally shaken if the structure can be pulled apart by municipalities seizing loans, especially by cherry-picking individual performing loans. -- Each PLS Trust which holds to-be-seized loans will be damaged by an amount that exceeds the face value of the loan, because the structure, as a fixed, geographically diverse pool, will be undermined. The market value of the interests in the PLS Trust will likely decline by an amount which far exceeds the face amount of the loans seized. This injury may well be uncompensable through post-seizure compensation proceedings. -- Each PLS Trust which holds to-be-seized loans will, at a minimum, lose the value of those loans - which the seizure program, by its nature and structure, seriously undervalues as part of its very premise.